Surprise!

Surprise! It was move call today since so many people were training this movecall and since so many people are moving they decided to make today Pday. So I will be able to email you today, but not on Monday. I moved out of Yuan Lin. :( I am in a new area just north of Tai Zhong called Tang Zi. It seems like a pretty cool place so far! I have a new companion, who has been here just a little bit less than I have. (about a movecall). He seems really cool! He's also from Lehi! I didn't know him before, though. His name is Elder Dayton. I am a little bit nervous about being in a new area and stuff, but I'm also excited. Leaving Yuan Lin was really hard and sad, but It seems really cool here! Movecall was kind of a funny story, because President Blickenstaff called my companion last Friday and told him he'd be training. Then I asked where I was going and he said he forgot but that he was making me a senior companion. :o Then we were told that movecall was going to be coming on Wednesday, but we weren't called (apparently the zone leaders forgot to call our district). So on Thursday morning, the day before I left, some Sisters called and asked if I could help them do some sort of duet thing in church. I told them I was going to move on Friday and they told me that I was going to be moving to Tan Zi! That night we called the zone leaders and chewed them out. ;)

 

Woa! We have a yard!! :o You'll have to send me more pictures!! :) I'll try to get some new pictures with my companion and apartment before next week. :) I can't believe that Tyler's--ahem, Elder Ryan has already hit his year mark!! That's going to be me pretty soon! :o 

Hmm, let's see, besides moving here I don't really think there's a ton of other big news. I love you guys so much and miss you lots!  I pray for you every day! I love you lots!! :D 

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Elder Fleming

好久不見！(long time no see)

     Hey, long time no see! I wanted to write you all a quick email and sum up the week and stuff. :) This week was pretty cool and we were able to find some people! Yay!! :D Last Monday was pretty fun and the 4 Elders in Yuan Lin all went to go play pool! Then on Tuesday we got a miracle referral and lesson. Wednesday was English class where we found a couple new investigators and then Thursday we went on companion exchanges. I was able to go with Elder Brayden. It was super cool, because we were able to give a couple investigators some baptismal goals! We've also been meeting with a super cool family for the last transfer and a half. The parents are both less-active members and their daughter is 10 and hasn't been baptized yet. We were able to give their daughter a baptismal goal and commit the dad to baptize her (and for the family to return to activity)! It was super cool!! :D I'm super excited for them!! :D Then on Friday (or maybe Saturday, I forgot), we went to this place called burger planet. It looked good and burger places are harder to find here. It was really good but the best part was that we expected it to have maybe a space theme, but it had a twist. It had a space cat theme! Haha it was hilarious and really awesome!! They had giant cats in astronaut suits on the walls! It was super fun and cracked us up! Then, to make it even better, they had a bunch of live cats in the store! :) They were just hanging out in the store and you could go pet them and stuff. It was awesome and hilarious! :) We are going back today, so I'll try to get some pictures today. :) 

     I took pictures with a bunch of people with the ward because this is probably my last week  in Yuan Lin, and probably my last time emailing from the bat cave. :/ We are going to be moving on Friday, because of all the new people coming on the island, and my name was on a list of people who will probably be moving. So we'll see what happens and where I go. I hope that they call us soon, because they told me that I might be moving and that the move call telling us where we would go would come soon and then we still haven't gotten it. :/ So I've been having a hard time sleeping since Saturday. :/

     I bore my testimony yesterday. Hopefully I'll be better at that in Sacrament meetings when I get back and can use English. ;) 

     That's good about the dirt and that the yard seems to be coming along pretty quickly! Maybe it just seems quickly to me because I only hear about it once a week. ;) The typhoon missed us and went up to Japan and Korea. No typhoon day this week. :) 

     Anyway, other than that, my companion and I went to this place to eat and there was this soap opera on about people who grow beans and stuff like for milk and coffee and stuff. It was super funny and random! :) They had also somehow incorporated the mafia. :) 

     Anyway, that was about my week. :) Love you guys so much and you're always in my prayers. :)

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Elder Fleming

Yi Kai and his wife, Huang Jie Mei and their kid who's super cute!! 

Liu Jie Mei and her son Yu Bo You (Helen and John) 

These are pictures of a Taiwanese marriage proposal at a ward activity in our gym in the middle of a singing competition. :) ...In case you were wondering what that looked like. ;) 

More proposal singing competition pics

The less active part member family I've been working with who now have a goal to come back to church. :D 

A cat from burger planet 

Playing pool and Elder Brayden stood up his pool stick like that. And then we left it there like that because it was cool :)

Elder Brayden's stained shirt from the red bricks

Us with our investigator, Felix. He's super funny! 

8/17/15 No typhoons this week!

Yay no typhoons last week! ...But I guess there's another one coming this week. :/ This last week was pretty good and I thought I'd send an email real quick to all of you at once. :) I hope you all had a great week! :) We had a pretty good week this week. We got another short term missionary, who was pretty cool. I'm really just grateful he didn't crash into us. :) Are you going back to school/work soon? I hope you're ready/excited for it! :) I'm kind of nervous but excited to go back to school, but I'm also kind of glad to wait another little while. :) 

We didn't do any clean up, (after the typhoon) we just kept proselyting. My week was good. Our investigators are mostly doing pretty well. :) We've had some good lessons with them. English class is pretty good. :) Elder Davis is also pretty good. :) We've been getting along pretty well, thankfully. :)

-- 

Elder Fleming

8/10/15 颱風來了!! (typhoon came)

Hehe I learned how I could use pin yin to type characters. :) The subject says "the typhoon is here" or that the "typhoon came" :) I thought I'd tell you my typhoon story. :) 

So the storm hit on Friday night, but at that time we were already inside (it was after 9). The next morning was pretty calm, and we even got a lesson with one of our investigators! Around 3ish is when the rest of the typhoon hit. We were in a more rural area about a 15 minute bike ride from the apartment. It started raining really hard first. Then the wind came. I felt pretty cool, standing out in the middle of the rain and wind. I wish my camera was waterproof so I could've taken some pictures. :) We were trying to find a less-active (LA), but we couldn't find him. We went to take shelter in a nearby 7-11 (they're all over Taiwan). Then a few minutes later, we went tracting and tracted into a lesson with a family that let us in because of the typhoon. We had a lesson with them and they said that they might come to church if the typhoon wasn't still in Taiwan. We left their house around 5. About 5 is when it was at its worst, from 5 until about 8 I think. At 5, President had issued a call or a text to everyone to return home and wait out the storm, but our phone was broken, because it got too wet, so we didn't know that. We went and found a really good restaurant and ate dinner, then used a payphone to ask the other Elders what was going on. That's when they told us that we were told to go back to our apartments. (At that time it was about 2 hours after we were told to go back to our apartment). We got to hang out in our apartment at 6 until the next day. :) It was like getting the night off! :) So Elder Davis and I tried to dry off the phone and played chess that night and then went to bed. :) that's my typhoon story. :) It felt like a prolonged micro-burst that we get in Utah, but the wind was a little worse and there was rain. It was kind of dangerous to be outside, but we were still ok. :) 

I have a good scripture, too. :) 3 Nephi 8:16 ;) "And there were some who were carried away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know that they were carried away." 

Woa, Uncle Glenn's going to be the bishop WHAT?! ;) That's really cool he will be the bishop! :)

--

Elder Fleming

Our attempt to dry off our phone to help fix it (it didn't work). :)

The view of the typhoon from our window. :)

Taiwan Taichung Mission-Typhoon Soudelor

email received early 8/7/15

Dear Parents of Taiwan Taichung Missionaries,

As perhaps you are already aware, typhoon Soudelor is expected to hit Taiwan sometime this evening (local time) with high winds and drenching rains lasting at least 24 hours. It is apparently the worst tropical storm so far in 2015. Current weather projections indicate that the hardest hit areas in Taiwan will be the east coast and northern regions. Our mission covers the southern half of Taiwan and does not include any of the east coast. Regardless, we are still expecting and preparing for severe weather.

All missionaries have been notified to “stay close enough to home that they could walk back in case of severe wind or rain.” They are repeatedly counseled not to ride bicycles during high wind and/or rain. All missionaries have 72-hour kits that were recently checked and replenished.

We appreciate your faith and prayers on behalf of our missionaries and all those who will be affected by this storm.

Warm regards,

President Blickenstaff

Taiwan Taichung Mission

8/3/15

Sorry for the interruption: (last week)

Hey sorry for the weekly pause in the middle of my last email. :) The 1st ward bishop asked us if we wanted to go to a chi dao bao with him last week. This week has been good and I feel like I have finally been able to know my companion better now that we don't have to speak Chinese all the time. :) I'm still alive, this week had a few bummers, because a bunch of people ditched out on lessons so we weren't able to get as many lessons or new investigators. :/ Also, the ward seems ok and I'm just glad that they got their air conditioning thing figured out. Hopefully it won't continue to be a problem. It's been going well otherwise and we have been doing well. I'm glad that we didn't have any bike accidents this week caused by short-term missionaries. :) (Our short term missionary crashed into both of us multiple times last week. :) )This week has been more of the same and it's weird that it's already August! Do you feel like the time has been going by really fast lately? I don't know if it's just me or not. We have our big multi-zone conference tomorrow, but it looks like it's just for our zone, so there will be fewer people there. Anyway, love you all so much!!!! :D  

-- 

Elder Fleming

I'm sorry your summer's almost over, but that means that there's one left before I come home. :) That's a bummer that RSL lost to DC last week! :( Sad day! I like the quote you sent. it's really good. I also like in (I think it's in 1Nephi), where it says that Jesus has graven us on the palms of His hands. That scripture really stuck out to me this time around reading the Book of Mormon. It's cool to think that He knows exactly what we've been through and what we're going through and that it is impossible for Him to forget about us. :)

My week was good, it's still hot, but it's supposed to cool down in the next month or two. :) Elder Davis is cool, and the contacting is ok. We got a few first lessons set up this week with people we contacted with, but none of them showed up. :/ The ward is good and I have some good relationships with a decent amount of the members, but there are still a bunch I don't know, because they are sisters and Elders can't really mingle with girls, which is sometimes a little frustrating when it gets in the way of the work. :/ I ate with members and at their houses a lot more in the 1st ward. In this ward it's less, but we still will usually eat with a member once or twice a week, which is pretty cool. :)  

--

Elder Fleming

Also the other picture is with some people I met at a baptism the other day. :)

My new tie. :) I'm sooo excited to wear this when I get back!! :D 

On the top of our apartment

Our church's fire extinguisher. :)

Me with a lizard friend

I finally found the lint trap in our dryer. I don't think it had been switched in months... :)